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📰Attention Chinese miners: Venezuela has banned power supply for Bitcoin mining and has rarely seized more than 11,000 mining machines!

Dialogue Earth reported earlier that after China launched a ban on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining in 2021, many miners set off a wave of exodus. Venezuela and Paraguay attract miners unable to operate in China, while Argentina could become a global Bitcoin mining destination.

But now, Venezuela’s policy has taken a 180-degree turn.

According to Bitcoin.com’s reporter in Venezuela, in line with the latest encryption mining ban announced by the Ministry of Electricity, Rafael Lacava, the governor of Carabobo state, the country’s industrial center, led a series of raids on cryptocurrency mines over the weekend, ultimately confiscating more than 11,000 ASIC mining machines and cut power to an unknown number of cryptocurrency mining farms.

The latest measures by Venezuela’s Ministry of Electricity are related to the Venezuelan government’s anti-corruption campaign launched last year, which has seen dozens of officials from Venezuela’s state oil company (PDVSA) and the National Crypto Asset Supervisory Authority (Sunacrip) arrested on suspicion of corruption since 2023.

Sunacrip is still restructuring to this day, which also resulted in the forced closure of cryptocurrency mines in several states and the ordering of some crypto exchanges to cease operations.

Local media AlbertoNews reported that one of the main reasons for Venezuela’s large-scale confiscation of cryptocurrency mining machines and power outages to mines was to solve the country’s ongoing power crisis since 2009. In 2019, a large power outage also caused some cities to The power outage lasted for seven days. Frequent power outages over the years have had a serious negative impact on the quality of life and economic activities of the country's people.

This was caused by a lack of maintenance and investment in the national grid, but authorities attributed it in part to cryptocurrency mining operations consuming too much energy from the grid and prioritized operations on crypto mining farms.

Rafael Lacava, the governor of Carabobo state who has confiscated more than 10,000 mining machines, stressed on social media over the weekend that these mining machines, which consume a lot of electricity, will continue to be cut off from the national grid. He also urged residents to report illegal crypto mining activities. , to avoid power shortage crisis.

It is worth noting that Venezuela has repeatedly tried to use cryptocurrency to bypass the U.S. economic sanctions regime in 2020. Even the country’s military has joined the ranks of Bitcoin miners and announced the official opening of a “Bitcoin Mining Center.”